December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Modified Token Posting Scheme
by ph＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:10 AM 1/4/1997, Roy M. Silvernail wrote: >In list.cypherpunks, ph(a)netcom.com writes: >> In essence, the poster is betting that the moderator will approve >> the post retroactively. >> The "moderator" returns the money to people when posts are worthwhile >> and keeps it otherwise. >> Of course, there's no reason to have just one moderator on the list. > In the case of several moderators, who gets the ecash? And doesn't this > open the list to bidding? "Pass this message, and you can keep the > e$500." The moderator keeps the cash. The moderator is pulled in several directions. He or she wants to keep the money but also wants people to post through him or her. The moderator also wants to be credible or their services will not be required. If it is implemented in a decentralized manner, the list is not up for bidding, but the ability to get past killfiles is. That is, anybody can post to the list, but some people will only read things coming from credible sources. The money you pay gets to those people. This is no different from the original scheme with a limited number of tokens. If the anonymity is preserved, you can always pay somebody $500 to go to the trouble of getting one of the rare tokens distributed or to buy one off a list member who already has one. In the modified scheme, the cost is quantified and easy to express and understand. Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com

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New rules for Internet sales to CA buyers
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The following subsection of California Business & Professions Code section 17538 took effect 1/1/97 and may be of interest to people following state attempts to regulate net sales: [...] (d) A vendor conducting business through the Internet or any other electronic means of communication shall do all of the following when the transaction involves a buyer located in California: (1) Before accepting any payment or processing any debit or credit charge or funds transfer, the vendor shall disclose to the buyer in writing or by electronic means of communication, such as E-mail or an on-screen notice, the vendor's return and refund policy, the legal name under which the business is conducted and, except as provided in paragraph (3), the complete street address from which the business is actually conducted. (2) If the disclosure of the vendor's legal name and address information required by this subdivision is made by on-screen notice, all of the following shall apply: (A) The disclosure of the legal name and address information shall appear on any of the following: (i) the first screen displayed when the vendor's electronic site is accessed, (ii) on the screen on which goods or services are first offered, (iii) on the screen on which a buyer may place the order for goods or services or (iv) on the screen on which the buyer may enter payment information, such as a credit card account number. The communication of that disclosure shall not be structured to be smaller or less legible than the text of the offer of the goods or services. (B) The disclosure of the legal name and address information shall be accompanied by an adjacent statement describing how the buyer may receive the information at the buyer's E-mail address. The vendor shall provide the disclosure information to the buyer at the buyer's E-mail address within five days of receiving the buyer's request. (C) Until the vendor complies with subdivision (a) in connection with all buyers of the vendor's goods or services, the vendor shall make available to a buyer and any person or entity who may enforce this section pursuant to Section 17535 on-screen access to the information required to be disclosed under this subdivision. (3) The complete street address need not be disclosed as required by paragraph (1) if the vendor utilizes a private mailbox receiving service and all of the following conditions are met: (A) the vendor satisfies the conditions described in paragraph (2) of subdivision (b) of Section 17538.5, (B) the vendor discloses the actual street address of the private mailbox receiving service in the manner prescribed by this subdivision for the disclosure of the vendor's actual street address, and (C) the vendor and the private mailbox receiving service comply with all of the requirements of subdivisions (c) to (f), inclusive, of Section 17538.5. --- Legislative history can be found at <http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_number=ab_3320&sess=PREV&h ouse=B> -- Greg Broiles | US crypto export control policy in a nutshell: gbroiles(a)netbox.com | http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | Export jobs, not crypto.

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ONE MILLION CHILDREN.....
by gary＠safetydisk.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

...and pets are lost or turn up missing every year! Protect your loved ones today! Think about all the things you do to protect your loved ones. Isn't there one more thing you should do? Child and Pet ID Kits have been around for years, but most of them haven't changed with the years. Traditional ID Kits allow you to compile valuable information about your child or pet that you can use in the event your child or pet is missing. We are responding to the rapid changes in technology. We know that any ID Kit just isn't good enough. Our ID Kit is quite different! You supply us with up to three photos and pertinent information about your child or pet and we create a SAFETYDISK. In PC or MAC format, SAFETYDISK is a 3 1/2" disk that contains photos and valuable information that could help law enforcement agencies in the search for a missing child or pet. What makes our kit so unique is that each SAFETYDISK is actually pre-formatted for the World Wide Web. SAFETYDISK can be put on any Internet server within seconds and displayed to millions and millions of people who might spot your child or pet! For more information, visit our website at http://www.mvisibility.com/sd/ Thanks, Gary Aikens President, SafetyDisk, Inc.

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Flame Free Bulk E-mail
by Flame Free 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Send 10,000 E-mails E v e r y D a y ... with YOUR Sales Message! These E-mail messages are ONLY sent to people who have REQUESTED info like yours. Don't Risk Getting Kicked Off Your ISP for Sending Too Many E-mails or Getting Flames! Never Chap Your ISP Again. Never Get Another Flame Message! No Flame messages will ever get to YOU again ... For details goto http://www.nettech-resources.com/flamefree.htm

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Re: Experiments on Mailing Lists
by ph＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:02 AM 1/4/1997, Timothy C. May wrote: >At 7:49 AM -0800 1/4/97, Peter Hendrickson wrote: >> The moderator keeps the cash. The moderator is pulled in several >> directions. He or she wants to keep the money but also wants people > ...blah blah blah.... > All of these schemes--some of them pretty clever--for posting tokens, > reputation-based killfiles, buying and selling reputation futures, etc., > are almost certainly far too complicated to deploy on a list like ours. > ...[Interesting Extropian history deleted.]... > So, rather than do similar tinkering with the Cypherpunks list--not that > either Hugh Daniel or John Gilmore have given any hint they are willing to > do such tinkering--I suggest those who want to try token-based posting, or > information markets in reputation capital, or herd-consensus killfiles, > etc., set up a separate mailing list and implement whatever they wish. If the point of these schemes is to filter content (*), there is no reason why they have to be implemented for the entire list. They can always be converted to a tag on the message which readers can use, but are not required to. I'm sure Tim would not object to any scheme implemented in this way. (So sure, in fact, that I will give him a dollar if he does object. ;-) (* If the point is to stop spam attacks, then they do have to affect the entire list.) Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com

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Oakland School Board modifies Ebonics decision
by nobody＠replay.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Oakland, CA, Reuters -- Oakland School Board modifies Ebonics decision. On Saturday, the Oakland School Board, meeting in emergency session, voted to modify its controversial "Ebonics" program, which authorized Ebonics, or "black English," as a second language for the purposes of teaching minority children and for receiving federal funds for language programs. But the program became the laughingstock of the nation, as critics pointed out, and the White House was quick to announce that no funding for Ebonics programs will be forthcoming. As President Clinton noted, "Hell, down in Arkansas we got folks talkin' like that everyday, and we don't call it "bubbonics, " now do we?" Under pressure from the parents of the remaining white children, the Oakland School Board has decided to add "white English," also known as "Albonics," to the list of special languages. Under the proposal, Albonics would be a valid language for teaching white children who are lacking ghetto jive skills. As School Superintendent Lavondala Rasheed-Washington explained, "Yez be all we be sayin', know? Da honkies be sayin' ebonics be dissin' dem. We'z be skaggin' and deyz be tootin' an shit. Dis be bad." (A translation into Albonics was not available at press time.) In related news, the Oakland School Board has completed work begun over the Christmas school break to subtitle all school signs in Ebonics. The "Boys" and "Girls" restrooms in all Oakland schools are now subtitled "Niggaz" and "Bitches."

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Returned mail: Mailbox full, Please try later. (fwd)
by ArkanoiD 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Good news ;) Forwarded message: > From MAILER-DAEMON(a)paranoid.convey.ru Sun Jan 5 20:18:11 1997 > Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1997 09:17:36 -0800 (PST) > From: Mailer-Daemon(a)ix.netcom.com (Mail Delivery Subsystem) > Subject: Returned mail: Mailbox full, Please try later. > Message-Id: <199701051717.JAA15268(a)ixmail5.ix.netcom.com> > To: <ark(a)paranoid.convey.ru> > Auto-Submitted: auto-generated (failure) > > The original message was received at Sun, 5 Jan 1997 09:17:21 -0800 (PST) > from paranoid.convey.ru [195.212.156.196] > > ----- The following addresses have delivery notifications ----- > <jguarnie(a)ix7.ix.netcom.com> (unrecoverable error) > > ----- Transcript of session follows ----- > 554 <jguarnie(a)ix7.ix.netcom.com>... Mailbox full, Please try later. > > ----- Original message follows ----- > > Return-Path: <ark(a)paranoid.convey.ru> > Received: from paranoid.convey.ru (paranoid.convey.ru [195.212.156.196]) by ixmail5.ix.netcom.com (8.7.5/SMI-4.1/Netcom) > id JAA15229; Sun, 5 Jan 1997 09:17:21 -0800 (PST) > Received: (from ark@localhost) by paranoid.convey.ru (8.7.5/8.7.3) id UAA25246 for jguarnie(a)ix7.ix.netcom.com; Sun, 5 Jan 1997 20:16:24 +0300 > From: ArkanoiD <ark(a)paranoid.convey.ru> > Message-Id: <199701051716.UAA25246(a)paranoid.convey.ru> > Subject: Re: Thermojetic Herbal BreakThrough!!! > To: jguarnie(a)ix.netcom.com > Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1997 20:16:22 +0300 (MSK) > In-Reply-To: <199612292025.MAA28652(a)dfw-ix11.ix.netcom.com> from "jguarnie(a)ix7.ix.netcom.com" at Dec 29, 96 03:31:24 pm > X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] > MIME-Version: 1.0 > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > > Fuck off with your shit. > > > > > ******SORRY FOR THE INTRUSION THIS IS A ONE TIME MESSAGE***** > > ********YOU WILL NOT BE CONTACTED AGAIN******** > > > > !!!!!!!!!! THERMOJETICS HERBAL BREAKTHROUGH !!!!!!!!!! > > [skip..] -- _ _ _ _ _ _ _ {::} {::} {::} CU in Hell _| o |_ | | _|| | / _||_| |_ |_ |_ (##) (##) (##) /Arkan#iD |_ o _||_| _||_| / _| | o |_||_||_| [||] [||] [||] Do i believe in Bible? Hell,man,i've seen one!

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Re: ONE MILLION CHILDREN.....
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:57 PM 1/4/97 -0800, Toto wrote: >Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: > >> I used to be at 212-666-6984 for some 7 years. > > Aha! You figured it out, too, huh?!? Take the word "devil," remove the vowels and you get dvl. Rearrange slightly, and it's "dlv." Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: OCR and Machine Readable Text
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:06 PM 1/2/97 -0800, Bill Stewart wrote: >It's really embarassing to have to pay salaries of "public employees" >who can't come up with better arguments than the paper/magnetic/OCR nonsense >but don't have the guts to stop trying and admit they've wrong. >Does the President still make $200K/year salary? You'd think he'd either >read what he signs or tell his employees to only ask him to sign >at least half-way credible stuff. The old regulations used to pretend that >foreigners were too dumb to implement computer programs from algorithms; >now they're pretending that foreigners are too dumb to type.* >People used to say we have the best politicians money can buy, >but you ought to be able to buy better politicians than that. Or beter excuses. >At 10:31 AM 12/30/96 -0800, Tim May wrote: >>And not only is OCR able these days to handle general fonts easily enough, >>but almost all printed code is in fixed-width fonts, i.e., non-proportional >>fonts. This makes OCR easy. > >The basic difference between "easily OCRed source code" and "not easily >OCRed source code" is pretty much limited to two things >1) Half-decent print quality (black on white in Courier at 300dpi should do....) > As Tim says, this stuff is child's play. Back when OCRs were > $10,000 machines with cutting-edge 68010 processors, > reading Courier was pretty easy but it helped to put in checksums; > these days you don't really need that. (It also didn't like > wet-process 240-dpi laser printing or faxes, but modern OCR software > can generally deal with good-quality faxes and >2) Bound pages vs. loose pages (printing with perforated pages > or selling the source code in loose-leaf might count as an > "attractive nuisance" :-), but a band-saw can solve that problem > for the OCR user unless it's printed on Tyvek or something silly :-) Even an exacto-knife would work. For proportional fonts it depends on how nasty the kerning gets and the shape of the characters. (And a san serif font without too many kerning pairs should go though fine.) The technology for this has progressed quite a bit in the last few years. Next thing you know, OCR software will be export controlled as well. (Or they will require something silly, like having all code samples in caligraphy fonts.) >In the Karn case, the Feds made the silly argument that the >floppy disk version had the files neatly separated, while the >paper version split files between pages and had page numbers at the >bottoms of the pages that weren't part of the source code. >Even the $10K 68010 wonderbox could handle page headers/footers and margins, >and modern software can do decent translations into different >word processor formats. And even if it didn't, just selecting and deleting the margin areas would not be all that difficult. (Ooohhh... A couple of extra hours is really going to slow someone down.) >>For just the amount of money we've spent (in our consulting fees) on >>discussing just this issue of OCRing, the entire content of the MIT PGP >>source code book AND Schneier's AC could have been manually inputted by >>Barbadans or Botswanas, or probably even by Europeans. I used to work for a company that would transfer entire archives of medical journals. Much of it we would just OCR. Some of it we would send off shore. The OCR software was about 95% reliable and this was over 5 years ago. (And we were using 286 boxes for much of the OCR work. Not a heavy technoligical investment.) I am sure that things have improved a great deal since then. (My new scanner included OCR software. I will have to run a test and report the findings. >There's one German university that OCRed the MIT PGP source code book. >The PGP folks passed out copies of their new 3.0 Pre-Alpha and an update >at a recent Cypherpunks meeting. See >http://www.pgp.com/newsroom/sourcebook.cgi >for ordering informaiton. It's been donated to some local libraries, >such as San Jose CA, and I hope they'll send it to the Library of Congress >and various non-US university and other public libraries - the recent >rules change clarifying that it's ok to export source code should make >this much easier. The page listed does not contain order information. Do you know costs and/or order info? >[* OK, it's not really possible to type or proofread perl code accurately :-) Yeah, just look at what happened with John Orwant's _Perl 5 interactive Course_. The book is being recalled due to all the typographical errors from the pubisher. Reading some Perl code is also quite impossible. (For the reasons behind this, i recommend Charlie Stross's article on the tpoic on page 36 of _The Perl Journal_ #4.) >More to the point, OCRs aren't always real good about `backquotes' and other >little blotchy marks that some languages use, and even humans don't always >get them right.] Many character sets are not very good at displaying "little used" characters clearly. (Some of the cheaper fonts do not even include them.) Backticks are a special problem. The latest Camel book has all sorts of problems with hard to recognise backticks. BTW, there is an article on Perl and randomness in The Perl Journal #4 by John Orwant. Pretty basic for most Cypherpunks, but good reading none the less... --- | If you're not part of the solution, You're part of the precipitate. | |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.ctrl-alt-del.com/~alan/ |alan(a)ctrl-alt-del.com|

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No Subject
by Bovine Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timothy C[retin] May was born when his mother was on the toilet. ____ \ _/__ Timothy C[retin] May \\ / \/

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